With Holidu's Flexible Stays feature, you can open up bookable nights between bookings — the gaps shown in purple on your calendar that wouldn't usually be bookable due to your minimum-stay rules or fixed check-in/out days. Activating Flexible Stays makes those nights available without changing your standard settings, helping you capture short-stay demand you'd otherwise miss.

Understanding Flexible Stays

Calendar gaps are periods between confirmed bookings where your current settings prevent guests from making reservations. These gaps often represent missed earning opportunities, especially during peak seasons when short-stay demand is high. Flexible Stays allows you to temporarily override your standard minimum-stay requirements for these specific periods, making your property more competitive and accessible to a broader audience of guests looking for short stays.

How to Activate Flexible Stays

You can configure Flexible Stays from either the Discounts section or the Calendar section of your Holidu account. Both methods lead to the same result, so choose whichever is most convenient for you.

Activating from the Discounts Section

1. Log in to your Holidu account and select the property you want to update
2. Go to "Configuration" on the left-hand side
3. Scroll down and click on "Discounts"
4. Scroll to the bottom of the page to find the Flexible Stays section
5. Click on "Configure"
6. Choose your preferred minimum stay length: 1, 2, or 3 nights for the gap period
7. Set your price increase: you can increase the price per night up to 50% over your current nightly rate
8. Click "Activate" to confirm and apply the configuration

Activating from the Calendar Section

1. Log in to your Holidu account and select your property
2. Go to your property calendar
3. Click on the purple indicator showing a gap night
4. Choose your preferred minimum stay length: 1, 2, or 3 nights for the gap period
5. Set your price increase: you can increase the price per night up to 50% over your current nightly rate
6. Click "Activate" to confirm and apply the configuration

Key Benefits of Using Flexible Stays

• More bookings: Short-stay nights become bookable during high-demand periods, capturing guests who wouldn't book longer stays
• Better visibility: Over 20% of peak-season searches are for short stays, and Flexible Stays helps you appear in these search results
• More reviews: Every additional booking is another opportunity for guest feedback and positive reviews
• Higher ranking potential: Bookable gaps improve your overall property performance and search ranking on Holidu
• Less manual work: Eliminate the need to manually adjust your calendar for each gap period
• Increased revenue: Premium pricing during peak-season gaps can increase your earnings per night

Important Things to Keep in Mind

• Flexible Stays only affects calendar gaps where your current minimum-stay settings don't allow bookings
• This feature overrides your standard minimum-stay requirements and check-in/check-out day rules for the gap period only
• Guests can check in and check out on any day during the Flexible Stays period — not just your normally designated check-in/out days
• When a booking is made using Flexible Stays, the special pricing and stay rules apply only to that specific booking
• Flexible Stay bookings are tagged in your calendar so you can easily identify which reservations used this feature
• You can deactivate the feature anytime from the same configuration menu
• Your standard booking settings remain unchanged — Flexible Stays only applies to the specific gap periods you configure

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I exclude certain dates from Flexible Stays?

Activating Flexible Stays applies to all gap nights that match your configured settings. However, you can still manually block any specific dates you don't want to open through your calendar's blocking feature. This gives you full control over which gaps are actually available to book.

Do guests see the purple gaps on my calendar?

No. The purple gap indicators are visible only to you in your host dashboard. They're designed to help you identify where bookings are being missed due to your minimum-stay requirements. Guests see your property availability as normal and won't notice these visual indicators.

Can I change my Flexible Stays settings later?

Yes. You have complete flexibility to update or disable Flexible Stays at any time. You can modify the minimum stay length, adjust your premium pricing, or turn off the feature entirely from the same configuration menu. Changes take effect immediately for future bookings.

What happens if a gap is booked with Flexible Stays?

When a guest books a gap period using Flexible Stays, the special pricing and minimum-stay rules you configured apply only to that specific booking. Your standard settings remain in effect for all other periods. The booking will be clearly tagged in your calendar as a Flexible Stay reservation.

Can I set different prices for different gaps?

When you activate Flexible Stays, the settings apply to all qualifying gaps. If you need different pricing for specific gaps, you can deactivate the feature, make manual adjustments through your pricing settings, and then reactivate with new parameters when needed.

Does Flexible Stays affect my cancellation policy?

Flexible Stays bookings follow the same cancellation policy you have set for your property. The feature only affects minimum-stay requirements and pricing — your cancellation terms remain consistent across all booking types.

Will using Flexible Stays impact my property's search ranking?

Positively! Having more bookable dates and higher occupancy rates supports your property's performance in Holidu search results. Flexible Stays helps fill gaps and increase your overall booking rate, which can improve your visibility and ranking on the platform.